My third and final book for 1937 Club, hosted by Stuck in a Book and Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings, is Rosabelle Shaw (also published as The Story of Rosabelle Shaw) an early novel by D.E. Stevenson. Wikipedia describes Stevenson as an author of ‘light romantic novels’, but I have read several of her books and although some of them fit that description, others (such as her dystopian novel, The Empty World) do not. This is another that is not a typical Stevenson novel and I found it suprisingly dark.

The novel begins in 1890s Edinburgh with Fanny Dinwiddie, a pretty, lively young woman, who catches the eye of John Shaw, a farmer visiting the city on business. For John, it’s love at first sight and it’s not long before he is heading back to Shaws, his farm near the Scottish coast, with Fanny as his wife. It takes Fanny a while to adjust to her new home – she has left behind her father and beloved sister, Alison, and she misses the social life of Edinburgh – but eventually she begins to settle in and make friends and soon a daughter, Rosabelle, is born. At this point, I was expecting a gentle, domestic novel about the life of a farmer’s wife on a Scottish farm…but I was wrong.

When Rosabelle is three years old, a ship is lured onto the rocks near Shaws farm during a storm. John thinks he knows who is responsible for causing the wreck and is filled with guilt for not doing more to stop it, but is able to make amends by rescuing and informally adopting the only survivor of the disaster, a small child with whom Fanny immediately forms a bond. Nobody knows the little boy’s name or the identities of his real parents, so John and Fanny raise him with their own children and name him Jay. From the moment Jay enters their lives, tensions begin to form in the Shaw household. Unlike Rosabelle and her real brother and sister, Jay is a deceitful, jealous and manipulative child determined to get his own way. John struggles to like the boy, while for Fanny he can do no wrong, causing the first real disagreements of their married life.

Moving forward several years, we meet the Shaw children again as young adults. Rosabelle has begun to look at Jay in a different light, captivated by his good looks and charisma, and begins to fall in love, much to the dismay of her neighbour Tom, who was hoping to marry Rosabelle himself. But there could still be a chance for Tom after all, because Jay is about to bring shame on the Shaw family and betray their kindness and generosity, breaking the hearts of both Rosabelle and Fanny.

I found Rosabelle Shaw quite enjoyable, but it seems to have had mainly negative reviews, maybe because the melodramatic, almost Gothic feel isn’t what you would expect from Stevenson. A lot of people have also complained about the racism, which I noticed as well – it’s definitely implied that because Jay arrived on a foreign ship and is possibly Spanish, he is naturally sly and untrustworthy, unlike the good, honourable Scottish characters. The book reminded me very much of Wuthering Heights, with Jay being similar to Heathcliff, who is also of unknown parentage and nationality and causes nothing but trouble for the Earnshaw family (Rosabelle is obviously in the role of Catherine Earnshaw, who falls in love with her adopted brother).

The book takes on a slightly different tone towards the end when, in 1914, war breaks out and brings big changes to our characters’ lives. From this point, the focus of the book shifts away from Jay to concentrate on the war and how it affects the family at Shaws. I thought it was a fascinating novel, but it won’t appeal to everyone and there are probably better places to start if you’re new to Stevenson. For me, though, it was another good choice for 1937 Club!